Leadership (Abuja)
Golu Timothy
21 November 2008
Abuja — A Nigerian IT company, NairaNet, said it can use technology to address criminal activities in Nigeria while hoping to make a sizable profit from it.
The facility also has the capacity to halt the on-going youth restiveness in the Niger Delta region of the country.
It therefore called on governments at all levels to make use of its facilities to secure and protect their citizens and their properties.
Speaking to LEADERSHIP at the just concluded Nigeria-South African Investment Forum in Capetown, the Managing Director of NairaNet, Mr Kenneth Adoki, said the technology has been tested and proven, and embraced by most developing countries, and therefore, in the best security interest of Nigeria to do same.
According to him, NairaNet is doing so by using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to combat crime and criminality by detecting related actions at the point of commission.
"RFID is by no means a new concept and used in many other parts of the world but, as is the case with many modern goods and services, new to Nigeria.
RFID is used for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. An RFID tag is basically a small device containing a chip, on which information can be stored, and an antenna. An RFID reader is used to read the information on the chip when it is within a specific range. It is commonly used for vehicle and goods tracking, in identification documents such as passports, in retail outlets to curb theft of items, and in many other areas," he said.
"We felt that we should use RFID to track and monitor all sorts of negative activities that are going on in our territory," says Kenneth Adoki MD/CEO of NairaNet.
"Nigeria has a very wide coastline and we felt we needed to use RFID, firstly to track crude oil movements and thefts, and secondly to monitor containers coming into the country. If contrabands are brought into the country, we will be able to monitor it. Right now, every consignment of containers coming into the United States must have an RFID seal on it."
Besides tracking the movement of goods, NairaNet has many other plans for RFID. In Nigeria, the cloning of documents such as certificates of occupancy, bills of landing, university certificates and cheques are costing government and business a significant amount of money every year. On how do you stop such cloning, Adoki said, "We put an RFID tag on that document which sticks like a stamp. Details of the document are also on the chip and anyone with an RFID reader can verify the information."
NairaNet has already struck a deal with Kebbi State, and all the official documents of the state government now carry an RFID tag. The company is hoping to expand this to all state governments as well as to the Federal Government level." He added that NairaNet is also targeting the use of RFID technology in schools.
"The company is busy with a pilot scheme with two private schools in Lagos where an RFID tag is embedded in a student identity card. As soon as the pupil enters the school, RFID reader picks up his position and sends a text message to the parent's phone. When the pupil leaves the grounds, the parent is also notified. Because the technology is still relatively expensive, it is only viable for private schools at the moment.
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